1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a toner, a developer, and an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical electrophotographic image forming method includes the processes of forming an electrostatic latent image on a photoreceptor (an electrostatic latent image bearing member), developing the electrostatic latent image into a visible image (a toner image) with a developer, and transferring and fixing the visible image onto a recording medium such as paper.
Recently, to meet a requirement of energy saving, technologies for achieving low-temperature fixing have been developed. For example, toners which include low-softening-point resins and waxes having excellent low-temperature fixability have been proposed.
Although extremely-low-temperature fixable toners are technically available, such toners have a general drawback that they easily get solid by receiving heat from the machine in use or during storage. This phenomenon is generally called blocking. Such toners are poor at heat-resistant storage stability.